33-ENTRADA EΝ JERUSALÉN
38- La despedida del Divino Amante
The twelfth-century continues the theme of the crusading being a masculine activity. Moreover, rhetoric surrounding the twelfth-century crusades actively condemned and prohibited women from participating not only in warfare but in the voyage. The Second Crusade illustrates that the intended audience for the crusade was masculine, Eugenius III (1145-53), as Rousseau observes, ‘in his letter of 1 March 1146 to King Louis VIII and all the French Faithful’ specifically makes mention how ‘Pope Urban, sounded forth… to incite the sons of the Holy Roman Church…’.99 Furthermore, Eugenius III reminded his audience how
their ‘fathers’ had ‘manfully captured’ cities in the East.100 Therefore, Eugenius III, following
on from his predecessor, continued to use male-gendered language in his recruitment for the crusades. In addition, Eugenius III reiterated how the First Crusade was also perceived as masculine. Pope Gregory VIII’s (1187) call for the Third Crusade, likewise, addressed the audience as ‘sons', further solidifying that women crusaders were unwelcome within the crusades of the twelfth-century.101
By analysing twelfth-century sources unrelated to the papacy the contextualisation of contemporary views towards women crusaders is enhanced. Two main criticisms of crusading arose from the First Crusade that solidified the discouragement of crusading women. The first of these criticisms was the suffering caused on crusade, predominantly the suffering, caused by the siege of Antioch, which influenced leaders of the First Crusade, as Siberry notes, to reiterate ‘that all non-combatants should remain at home’.102 The second criticism was the
sinfulness of the crusading armies, particularly the lack of sexual purity. Sinfulness was continually discussed by the clergy who ‘continually reminded the host of the connection between human sinfulness and a defeat'. 103 Therefore, the leaders of the crusades blamed
women, who were viewed as characteristically sexual in nature, for any defeat of the crusading armies because of the sinfulness of adultery or lack of sexual purity within the camps.104 Both the dangers of crusading and the belief that sexual sin caused the defeat of
the crusaders are represented moreover, by Fulcher of Chartres during the siege of Antioch in the First Crusade:
99 Rousseau, C. M. ‘Home Front and Battlefield: The Gendering of Papal Crusading Policy (1095-1221)’ In Lambert,
S., & Edgington, S. B. (eds) (2001). Gendering the crusades. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. pp. 31- 44. Also See: ‘Letter XLVIII of Pope Eugenius III to King Louis VII of France (1 December 1145)’. W.L. North W.L (Trans) from the edition of Migne J.-P. (1855). Patrologia Latina 180. Paris: cols. 1064‐1066.
https://apps.carleton.edu/curricular/mars/assets/Pope_Eugenius_III_to_Louis_VII_Letter_48_1_.pdf Date Accessed: 20/02/2017
100 Ibid…
101Rousseau, C. M. ‘Home Front and Battlefield: The Gendering of Papal Crusading Policy (1095-1221)’ In Lambert,
S., & Edgington, S. B. (eds) (2001). Gendering the crusades. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. pp. 35.
102 Siberry, J. E. (1982). Criticism of crusading, 1095-1274. Oxford: Clarendon press. Pp. 44. 103 Ibid… pp.45.
104 Bradly, L. A. (1992). Essential and Despised: Images of Women in the First and Second Crusades, 1095-1148.
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13. We believed that these misfortunes befell the Franks, and that they were not
able for so long a time to take the city because of their sins. Not only dissipation, but also avarice or pride or rapaciousness corrupted them. 14. After holding council, they drove out the women from the army, both married and unmarried, lest they, stained by the defilement of dissipation, displease the lord. Those women then found places to live in the neighbouring camps. 15. Both the rich and the poor were desolate from hunger as well as from the daily slaughtering….105
Regardless of whether the women were married or single they were forced to roam a hostile environment in enemy territory.106 Additionally, Fulcher highlights that ‘both the rich and poor’
would die from starvation or be slaughtered, illustrating how resources were limited within the crusading armies. Fulcher demonstrates that non-combatants, women included, would, therefore, have been a drain on the crusading armies’ resources. To minimise any burden on resources and halt events whereby women are exiled from the camps and forced to suffer, leaders would be encouraged to limit the number of crusading women. Likewise, the rhetoric that women were the source of sinfulness and defeat in the crusader camps was mirrored into the Second Crusade. Contemporary Vincent of Prague proclaimed women as the source of the sin and immorality within the crusader camps, citing them as the cause of defeat during the Second Crusade.107
Further attitudes towards crusading women are illustrated through queen Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122 – 1204), who William of Newburgh believed inspired other women to accompany their husbands on crusade, making their armies unchaste and undisciplined.108 In March 1148 Louis
VII (1120 – 1180) and his wife, Eleanor, arrived in Antioch, greeted by Raymond Prince of Antioch (1115 – 1149).109 John of Salisbury, an observer, reports: ‘The attentions paid by the
prince to the queen, and his constant, indeed continuous, conversation with her, aroused the king’s suspicions’.110 Although, as Bradly writes, Salisbury was ‘not particularly sympathetic
to Eleanor’, his view towards Eleanor is moderate in comparison to later sources.111
Furthermore, William of Tyre believed Raymond was plotting against Louis VII and was making him sensitive through Eleanor:
105 Peters, E. (ed.) (1998). The first crusade: The chronicle of Fulcher of Chartres and other source materials (2nd ed.).
Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Pp.72-3.
106 Bradly, L. A. (1992). Essential and Despised: Images of Women in the First and Second Crusades, 1095-1148.
Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 1956. Pp.84.
107 Holt, A. ‘Between Warrior and Priest: The creation of a New Masculine Identity during the Crusades’. In
Thibodeaux, J. D. (ed.) (2010). Negotiating clerical identities: Priests, monks and masculinity in the Middle Ages. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Pp. 196.
108 Ibid… Pp.196.
109 Bradly, L. A. (1992). Essential and Despised: Images of Women in the First and Second Crusades, 1095-1148.
Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 1956. Pp.98.
110 Ibid… Pp.98.
111 Ibid… Pp.98. Also see: Evans, M. R. (2014). Inventing Eleanor: The Medieval and Post-Medieval Image of Eleanor
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He resolved also to deprive him of his wife, either by force of by secret intrigue. The queen readily assented to this design, for she was a foolish woman. Her conduct before and after this time showed her to be, as we have said, far from circumspect. Contrary to her royal dignity, she disregarded her marriage vows and was unfaithful to her husband.112
However, these complaints towards Eleanor should not be accepted at face value. The explanations for the criticism towards Eleanor, firstly, originate from, as Evan notes, Eleanor seeking an annulment with Louis VII because of her eagerness to marry Henry II of England (1152-1189), thus threatening Louis’ male authority in the marriage. 113 Tyre, thereby, writing
primarily for a French audience, would be critical towards Eleanor as he would be in support of her husband Louis VII.114 Secondly, Jean Flori, emphasises that the criticisms towards
Eleanor are political, originating from Eleanor’s disagreements with Louis VII on the conduct of the crusade.115 Consequently, illustrating that, as a crusading woman, Eleanor transgressed
the accepted boundaries by critiquing her husband’s crusade, opening herself up to criticism by contemporaries. Finally, Eleanor was portrayed as promiscuous in behaviour to credit her for the ‘factionalism, treason and calamity’, as Bradly states, found in the Second Crusade, like the women exiled from the camps in the First Crusade. 116 Nevertheless, regardless of
how the criticisms towards Eleanor originated, Eleanor demonstrates potential perceptions towards crusading women as transgressing medieval boundaries and being promiscuous in behaviour. Ultimately, these actions would, as contemporaries believed, cause the crusades to fail.
Finally, contextualisation of the perceptions towards crusading women within the twelfth century will conclude with an extract from the Iternerarium, during the Third Crusade who wrote:
The enthusiasm for the new pilgrimage was such that already it was not a question of who had received the cross but of who had not yet done so. A great many men sent each other wool and distaff, hinting that if anyone failed to join the military undertaking they were only fit for women’s work. Brides urged their husbands and
112 Cited in: I Bradly, L. A. (1992). Essential and Despised: Images of Women in the First and Second Crusades, 1095-
1148. Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 1956. Pp.98 -99.
113 Evans, M. R. (2014). Inventing Eleanor: The Medieval and Post-Medieval Image of Eleanor of Aquitaine (1st ed.).
London: Bloomsbury. Pp.27.
114 Ibid… Pp.24.
115 Citied by Ibid… Pp.28.
116 Bradly, L. A. (1992). Essential and Despised: Images of Women in the First and Second Crusades, 1095-1148.
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mothers incited their sons to go, their only sorrow being that they were not able to set out with them because of the weakness of their sex.117
The Iternerarium here exhibits the running theme that crusading is primarily a male activity by stating the enthusiasm of men joining the campaign. On the other hand, in contrast to previously explored announcements of the crusade, the Iternerarium explicitly links the idea that men who do not participate in the crusade are ‘only fit for women’s work’. Therefore, expressing that women were expected to stay at home. Furthermore, as noted by Maier, women, within the Iternerarium, are barred from crusading ‘on account of an alleged lack of bodily strength’.118 To conclude, the passage found in the Iternerarium demonstrates an end
towards non-combatants having a role in the twelfth century crusading efforts. With the increase of a more professional military crusading movement, led now by kings, attempts to exclude women from crusading became deliberate and less subtle. Accordingly, women were explicitly recognised as unfit for the crusading effort ‘because of the weakness of their sex’ which would have made them a ‘burden’ to the crusades.